


Long Pig

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen, Minor Character Death, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2813891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay hasn't fed in <i>forever.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Pig

Jay stumbled into the gas station, dragging his wounded leg behind him and hissing as his pant leg caught on the sliding door.

“Oh, shit,” he heard the cashier say as he hobbled in the direction of the bathrooms. He left bloody handprints on the shelves as he steadied himself against anything that looked like it wouldn't immediately fall over.

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” he snarled. But they were already picking up a phone. “I'm fine! Don't call the cops!” 

It was desperation. He was on edge – he's always on edge – and the smell of fresh blood was messing with his head in ways he couldn't help. That night, he was out trying to catch a decent meal before he walked right into a fox trap. In hot pursuit of a deer, he hadn't noticed the metal on the forest floor.

He followed the road, bleeding and unsatisfied, until he saw the first glimmer of light.

It was desperation, when he ripped open the cashier's throat and stained the waxed floor with blood. He cleaned himself up in the bathroom, and went on his quiet way back to the hotel. He took a cold shower and slept without any trouble.

Jay didn't worry about being caught, not when he'd been looking out of the corner of his eyes all night at the shadows, not when his own camera's footage had turned to static as soon as he stepped into the gas station. The crime scene wouldn't come up with any leads; he's been legally dead for a while now. _(He didn't leave his house for months, when he changed. He lost contact with his friends from college. Hunger, thirst, bloodlust. Couldn't go out in public. Couldn't close his mouth properly for days. The teeth got in the way.)_ The prints of a dead man might stir up the newspaper headlines and conspiracy theorists, but, otherwise, he had no concerns about being discovered.

That was back when he worked alone, when the only other pair of eyes he had was the camera. He doesn't miss those times – feeding on stray cats and dogs, when he eventually lost the nerve to slink through forests for a meal – but he misses having a full stomach.

Jay hasn't fed in _forever._

He eats food in front of Tim every once in a while, during long car rides or in the hotel they've stumbled into for the night. Some applesauce, a couple chips, a sip of coffee - whatever the continental breakfast has to offer, but it all tastes the same. Food tastes salty and hard, painful as he forces it down his throat. It makes him wish for something warmer, sweeter, softer, because a bagel or a piece of toast isn't what he really needs.

But he can't have Tim getting suspicious, or more suspicious than they already are of each other, not when they've established some frail desperateness he could possibly call trust.

“Are they stale?” Tim asks in the car, when he looks over and sees Jay's contorted face as he forces down some chips. He's been giving him looks ever since they left the hotel that morning and Jay hadn't touched so much as a cup of juice.

The concern is nice, but, for a vampire who hasn't tasted blood since the last time he bit his tongue, it's extremely unhelpful.

“No, just...really salty.” It wasn't quite a lie.

Besides, telling Tim that he's a bloodsucker is a lot different than Tim telling Jay, for instance, that he thinks this mess with _the thing_ started with him. When Tim brought him to the abandoned hospital and told him he needed to confess something, at first...at first Jay thought he might be one, too, that they might share this.

It would make sense, considering how long they'd both survived. It would be nice...but he wasn't and Jay should have tried putting more emotion into his reaction. However, he's heard a lot worse confessions.

“I killed the lady downstairs, the lady at the front desk.” Jessica stood in the hallway of a hotel empty except for the two of them. He reached out a hand to comfort her but she backed away. “There were bite marks all over her body. Her neck was broken, she was all broken, every bone in her. There's no way I did this, Jay. Tell me, there's no way I did this!”

“There's no way you did this,” he said, “alone.”

That was so long ago. Now his stomach feels hollow and he can't go hunting, not when there's Tim and _that thing_ around. He's never been someone to give up, but he knows he can't resist his own needs for too long.

Jay has a way of satisfying his hunger, a system, a set of rules, and that's why he needs to find Jessica – make sure she isn't eating any more hotel employees, even though he did join in with her, but that's not important – and every day that passes he gets closer to making an exception to his system.

Jay thinks, as he pretends to rummage through the boxes looking for the tape that's in Tim's pocket, he should have listened to his body a long time ago.

“You sure you didn't see that tape over here?” he asks.

“No, but you keep looking.” Tim stands up and Jay can barely look at him. The camera does it for him. “I'm going to check the rest of the house.”

Jay sighs. His muscles quiver and his spine straightens. Tim's just on the other side of the wall, meat and flesh and _blood blood blood_ just on the other side of a thin wall. He's felt too out of control for too long, and it's not even related to being a vampire anymore.

He knows some _thing_ besides instincts are kindling the red hot anger begging his teeth to slide into place, but he wants nothing less than to eat. It couldn't be so bad, letting the prodding entity push him the extra mile he needs to give in.

The nauseating taste of the chips from the drive here sits on his tongue. He wets his cracked lips.

“I'm going to check the two rooms on the end. Will you check this one for me?” Tim asks, as if they're still working together on equal terms. As if he isn't trying to push his secrets under the carpet in front of Jay.

“Yeah.” Jay moves his hand so it covers the light, and he turns off the camera.

“Thanks.” Tim starts walking down the hallway. He should have tried to hide the tape more carefully. 

All that fresh blood in him. All that warm, sweet, soft blood.

Jay leans over and places the camera on the floor where it won't get hurt, and then he charges.


End file.
